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The first attempt at negotiation between Great Britain and the rebellious Thirteen Colonies after the outbreak in April 1775 of the American War of Independence took place in September 1776, when a committee from the Second Continental Congress agreed to meet with Admiral Lord Richard Howe, who had been given limited powers to treat with colonies individually. The limited authority given to both Howe and the American negotiators made it a virtual certainty that nothing would come of the meeting. The meeting was a failure, in part because the Congress had recently declared independence from Britain, something Howe was not authorised to recognise, and because the American commissioners had no substantive authority from Congress to negotiate.

After the British defeat at Saratoga in October 1777, and fearful of French recognition of American independence, the Prime Minister, Lord North, had Parliament repeal such offensive measures as the Tea Act and the Massachusetts Government Act, and sent a commission to seek a negotiated settlement with the Continental Congress. The commission was empowered to offer a type of self-rule that Thomas Pownall had first proposed a decade earlier (and which later formed the foundation of British Dominion status).[1] The fact that the commission was authorised to negotiate with the Continental Congress as a body also represented a change in official British government policy, which had before then been to treat only with the individual states.[2]

Historian David Wilson is of the opinion that the war could have been avoided if the terms it proposed had been offered in 1775.[3] Historian Peter Whiteley, however, notes that King George was unlikely to agree to make such an offer then.[4]

One thing the commissioners did not learn before their departure was that General Sir Henry Clinton had been ordered to evacuate Philadelphia, even though his orders had been issued one month before they left. Carlisle was of the opinion that the administration had done this intentionally, since they might not otherwise have gone at all. Carlisle wrote to his wife of the situation, "We all look grave, and perhaps we think we look wise. I fear nobody will think so when we return ... I don't see what we have to do here."[7] Upon learning of the planned withdrawal, Carlisle appealed to Clinton to delay it, but, in rejecting the appeal, Clinton cited his orders to act without delay. This prompted Carlisle to observe that the administration wanted the commission to be "a mixture of ridicule, nullity, and embarrassments."[8] Eden was upset that he wasn't told of Clinton's orders, since the British intent to withdraw further stiffened American resolve.[9] On June 13, the commissioners sent a package of proposals to Congress, which was then holding sessions in York, Pennsylvania.[10] Congress replied insisting that either American independence be recognised, or that all British forces first withdraw from the states, terms the commission was not authorised to accept.[4] The commission attempted to appeal to public opinion, with warnings of widespread destruction, but was unsuccessful.[11] Johnstone tried to bribe some Congressmen, and the Marquis de Lafayette challenged Carlisle to a duel over some anti-French statements he had made.[12][13]

Johnstone sailed to Britain in August, and the other commissioners returned in November 1778.[4] The British, being unable to bring Washington to a decisive engagement, resumed the military campaign, and turned to a "Southern Strategy" as their next attempt to win the war in North America.[3] A further attempt in December 1780 to seek a diplomatic peace in the form of the Clinton-Arbuthnot peace commission, failed, after which there were no further substantive peace overtures until the American victory at Yorktown in 1781.